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posted by on Sunday February 12 2017, @08:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-get-caught-if-you're-not-cheating dept.

A French businessman is suing Uber for 45 million euros, for destroying his marriage.

It seems that he installed the Uber app on his wife's phone, used it once, and then logged out. Later, when using the app on his own phone to arrange tête-à-têtes with his mistress, his wife received Uber notifications, and figured out what was going on. Uber attributes this to a bug in their software specifically related to an older version of iOS.

What do soylentils think generally about the liability of tech companies for bugs in their software? Some say liability is needed to force some responsibility; others say it would be the death of the software industry as we know it.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Refugee from beyond on Sunday February 12 2017, @10:18AM

    by Refugee from beyond (2699) on Sunday February 12 2017, @10:18AM (#466085)

    I’m not sure you’d be able to afford such a software.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by BsAtHome on Sunday February 12 2017, @11:12AM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Sunday February 12 2017, @11:12AM (#466094)

    I’m not sure you’d be able to afford such a software.

    Well, you are way off... I'm running quality software right now at very little expense.

    Take a look what Poul Henning Kamp writes about the subject: http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2030258 [acm.org]

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday February 12 2017, @02:00PM

      by Arik (4543) on Sunday February 12 2017, @02:00PM (#466144) Journal
      Obviously I'm sympathetic. I'm all in favor in jail time for these assholes that claim to be "Engineers" because they know how to click a few buttons.

      But what he's advocating is dangerous too. By the time that idea makes it through a legislature, it's likely to be strict enough to make it impossible for solo coders or small teams without institutional support to release anything, while still doing little if anything to force the commercial outfits to do any better (frankly I suspect most of them have such a knowledge deficit at this point they couldn't do anything right even if forced to.)
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12 2017, @06:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12 2017, @06:35PM (#466242)

        We don't need regulation, we need laws to protect privacy. The rest will sort itself out in a decade of failures and lawsuits.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12 2017, @06:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12 2017, @06:46PM (#466251)

        Jail time because someone calls themselves an engineer? When something at a hotel breaks they call 'engineering' to fix it. Where do you draw the line between an engineer and a non-engineer?

        and the amount of licensing required to do anything is ridiculous. For instance in some states you need a license just to become a security guard. Then you need to pay a renewal fee every two years or so for no good reason whatsoever. No additional training, nothing. It's just to fund these licensing boards and the agencies that provide the licenses and 'training'.

        My dad used to build airplanes back in the days working for a big company that I'm sure you've heard of. No license was required and they seemed to do OK. Half of the things required for the license are irrelevant anyways. For instance here in Cali to become a physical therapist you need a semester of organic chemistry (before which you need a year of gen chem). What does all this chemistry have to do with physical therapy you may ask? Absolutely nothing! It's a sham to fund the racket that our educational institutions have become. You can ask any physical therapist and they will tell you that organic chemistry is irrelevant to physical therapy (though I'm not a physical therapist I have taken a year of O-Chem).

        Most of the education is either irrelevant, theoretical, or obsolete by the time it makes it in school. It has no practical value and the time getting such licenses deprives people of much more useful real world experience and training in making products and harms consumers with higher prices (and perhaps deprives consumers that can't afford something of something they need). For instance ask any pharmacist and they will tell you they don't use organic chemistry. Ask someone that builds airplanes and works to put pieces together and they will say they don't need most of the theoretical stuff they are taught in school. They use testing (school just creates theories after the fact) to determine what works and what doesn't and they document and stick with what works. Then they have people that specialize in producing a specific item and specialize in ensuring its quality and proper usage. (One channel I found on Youtube, not my channel, is engineered truth, where the author interviews people from different professions such as engineers, pharmacists, etc... The people interviewed who have taken all these classes will attest that most of their schooling is useless. The author also has an engineering degree, IIRC, and used to work in aerospace and also says the same thing).

        The people that mostly benefit from these licenses are

        A: Licensing agencies and educational institutions that are required to get a license
        B: Businesses that want less competition for the products they sell
        C: Employers that want their employees and potential employees to have limited alternative employment opportunities

        Requiring a license for everything you do makes it harder for people to adapt to changing conditions when demand for one product ends and demand for a new product begins. The problem is compounded by the fact that having a degree may make it more difficult for you to get another degree (and hence a possible license) in a different field because many educational institutions resist accepting such students (ie: here to become a clinical lab technician you need a four year degree in a biology/chemistry related field). Requiring a license for everything also makes it more difficult for people to acquire experience in multiple fields and such interdisciplinary experience is important to creativity and innovation.

        • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday February 12 2017, @07:52PM

          by Arik (4543) on Sunday February 12 2017, @07:52PM (#466270) Journal
          It's false advertising. An engineer is someone who has demonstrated expertise in creating solid, enduring edifices of enduring quality. An engineer is someone whose work product has to be of consistently high quality because if it is not people will die, and someone who has an insurance policy appropriate to that case. An actual engineer that produced a product so unreliable as many of the commonly used desktop systems would lose his insurance, lose his certification, and find himself flipping burgers so fast it would make your head spin.

          A lot of your criticism of licensing regimes is actually right on, but it's not really pertinent to my point. "Software engineers" embody absolutely nothing engineer-like. It's simply stolen valor.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 13 2017, @04:30AM

            by dry (223) on Monday February 13 2017, @04:30AM (#466447) Journal

            Engineer is one of those words with multiple meanings. Didn't it originally mean someone who operated siege engines, and then meant someone who operates a steam engine, which morphed into operating a train. As far as I know, a train engineer doesn't have individual insurance to operate a train, nor does he create anything and often his training is on the job with the conductor actually responsible for much of the trains operation. Likewise with a ships engineer, more just a mechanic while the captain or master is responsible.
            There are accredited engineers, and as you say, they're responsible for what they sign off on. One has been on trial here for signing off on a mall which not long after collapsed and killed 2 people.
            Perhaps engineer is a word that needs splitting or at least more description.

            • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @01:33PM

              by Arik (4543) on Monday February 13 2017, @01:33PM (#466570) Journal
              This is the shine they're trying to put on: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe
              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @12:33AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @12:33AM (#466795)

                Was surprised to see one of my comments in that link.